Comparing “Communazis”:

Axis Supporters, Domestic Communists, and the Federal Government in World War II

Miles Hartl

History 4296-003: Battle Front and Home Front: The United States in World War II

November 17, 2014

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Twentieth century American history devotes considerable time to two arch-nemeses of

the United States. The first of these, the Axis triumvirate of Germany, Japan, and Italy, provoked

America’s entrance into a total war on the European and Pacific Theaters at the expense of

billions of U.S. dollars and 405,399 American lives.1 The second of these, the international rise

of communism, provoked the space race, two near-misses at nuclear Armageddon, the bitterly

divisive struggle over Indochina, covert political intervention in Latin America, and a surge in

defense spending that remains hewn into the deficits of the 21stcentury. Despite an exhaustive

effort on the part of historians to chronicle these struggles abroad, considerably less attention is

devoted to the federal government’s relationship with both ideologies on the home front.

Specifically, a strange silence descends on the activities of domestic communists and Axis

sympathizers during the Second World War. Given the near totality of America’s commitment to

fighting Germany, Japan, and Italy during this time period, the idea that a significant percentage

of Americans would continue to side with Axis ideology tends to be dismissed as a time-wasting,

intellectually barren examination of suicidal cranks and deviants. On the flip side, communism is

often relegated to the status of a “Cold War concern” given the U.S.S.R.’s Allied status from

1941 to 1945 and the pervasive efforts on the part of the United States government to drum up

support for the fight against the Axis. Hence, American communists are frequently overlooked in

the hierarchy of research interests.

Nevertheless, the dismissal of homegrown Axis and communist support in the greater

context of World War II misses a pivotal moment in the understanding of both. Contrary to

charges of irrelevancy, the millions of Axis sympathizers, including members of the German-

American Bund and other pro-Nazi organizations, constituted a significant minority of

1 Defense Casualty Analysis System, “World War II,” Defense Manpower Data Center, last modified 2014, accessed September 25, 2014, https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/casualties_ww2.xhtml.

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Americans. At the same time, the Communist Party constituted “a not unimportant factor in the

political life of the United States.”2 Clearly, the members of these organizations did not simply

vanish into the ether, nor did they abandon their long-held principles when America entered

World War II. Nor did they disappear from the radar of a presidential administration intent on

investigating them since 1934. Given the mutual hostility between communist and capitalist

ideology before and after the conflict, it is also important to examine the government’s

relationship with communists at a time when the Soviet Union was viewed as an indispensable

ally to the United States. A close look at relevant historical evidence reveals that both groups

were persecuted under the label of “Communazis,” though this title does not describe a

homogenous experience.

This paper argues that the World War II-era communist/federal government struggle

paradoxically represents a more complex, dynamic, and significant case study than the

suppression of American fascists. The “World War II era” shall herein be defined as the period

from 1938/1939 (the prologue to the war’s beginning in Europe) to 1945 (the year of Germany

and Japan’s surrender to the Allied powers). All significant federal government organizations

and employees shall be identified followed by an analysis of all significant individuals and

organizations persecuted due to their allegiance to the Axis and “communist” causes. From these

facts, a comparative conclusion will assess their experiences against definitions of “complexity,”

“dynamism,” and “significance.”

Before proceeding, it is important to identify all relevant federal politicians and political

committees that sought to persecute Axis and communist supporters. Franklin Delano Roosevelt,

representing the government’s executive branch as President of the United States, needs virtually

2 “Comintern Officer Praises U.S. Party: Cites Work With Progressives Here as 20th Year of Organization is Marked,” New York Times, March 5, 1939, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2010) with Index (1851-1993).

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no introduction, serving in office from 1933 to his death in 1945 and frequently influencing,

rather than instigating, legal and diplomatic relations with American fascists and communists.

Representing the legislative branch, the House Un-American Activities Committee (abbreviated

H.U.A.C.) was founded in 1938 as a reorganization of the Fish Committee (founded 1930 to

investigate communism) and McCormack-Dickstein Committee (founded 1934-1937 to

investigate both Nazi and communist propaganda). H.U.A.C. was originally chaired by

Democratic Texas senator Martin Dies, and was also known as the Dies Committee throughout

the senator’s 1938-1944 tenure. Congress passed the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 1938,

requiring alien agents to file with the State Department. The Alien Registration Act is also

known as the Smith Act, and was enacted on June 29, 1940 to criminalize advocacy to overthrow

the government of the United States and force all non-citizen adults to register with the

Immigration and Naturalization Service. The Voorhis Act of 1940 (sponsored by staunch anti-

communist Jerry Voorhis) did the same to political organizations under foreign control, forcing

them to register with the Justice Department. The Supreme Court of the United States and

various federal and state courts, each to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis, formed the judicial

branch of this trilateral apparatus.

The story of U.S.-based Axis support must be divided into three parts in the context of

World War II: those individuals in support of Italy, those in support of Germany, and those in

support of Japan. The Italian perspective comes first in terms of chronology and brevity. Benito

Mussolini (leader of Italy’s National Fascist Party) became Prime Minister in 1922, and his

regime was the first of the Axis governments to release propaganda within the United States.3

Given the vast number of Italian-Americans identified by the 1930 census, this presented a

3 Morris Schonbach, Native American Fascism During the 1930s and 1940s (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1985), 70.

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substantial problem to anti-fascist authorities.4 The benefit of hindsight, however, proves that this

threat was vastly overrated. On December 22, 1929, the Italian Fascist League voluntarily

dissolved following complaints by Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson to the Italian

government.5 Despite concerns about the status of the Sons of Italy and other organizations, the

federal government directed the majority of its attention to supporters of Nazi Germany in the

1930s.6 During the war years, federal authorities interned 367 Italian-Americans and arrested

3,567.7 Among the interned was Domenico Trombetta, publisher of the fascist periodical Il

Grido Della Stirpe, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on May 24, 1943 for failing to

register as a foreign agent.8 A subsequent trial sentenced him to prison on September 4, 1943 and

forced his periodical to cease publication.9 Generoso Pope, a sand-and-gravel dealer from New

York and owner of the newspapers Il Progreso Italo-Americano and Correire d’America, also

caused trouble for the federal government. While Pope served as Chairman of the Italian

Division of the Democratic National Committee, he vehemently supported Mussolini’s cause.

Following Congress’ unanimous declaration of war against Japan and Italy on December 11,

1941, political pressure and personal misgivings over anti-Semitic legislation proposed by

Mussolini forced Pope to reassess his convictions.10 The publicist formally denounced

Mussolini’s government and apologized for his actions within months of the Pearl Harbor attack;

he later went on to support the Italian-American war bond drive and work with the American

4 Ibid., 75.5 Ibid., 82.6 Ibid., 85.7 Don Whitehead, The F.B.I. Story (New York: Random House, 1956), 343.8 “Trombetta is Indicted: Accused of Failing to Register as Italian Agent,” New York Times, May 25, 1943, accessed December 2, 2014, Proquest Historical Newspapers.9 Schonbach, 115.10 Ibid., 116; Italian American Experience: an Encyclopedia, s.v. “Pope, Generoso (1891-1950),” accessed December 10, 2014, http://books.google.com/books?id=JUyAAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA488&lpg=PA488&dq=generoso+pope+democratic+national+committee&source=bl&ots=W7tGBgyOtt&sig=PAO1N9s3nXDN3R2w8tttsnyVcUM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ySWHVMqANI6zyAT9_4KYCA&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=generoso%20pope%20democratic%20national%20committee&f=false”

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Committee for Italian Democracy to “rehabilitate” himself with Roosevelt.11 These incidents

constitute the most significant relations of the federal government to Italian fascists during

World War II.12

The experience of Japanese-government supporters follows roughly the same pattern with

one potential exception. Mainly, the federal government sought to intervene in suspected cases

of espionage and propaganda. Concern over the former heavily inspired the passage of the 1938

McCormack Act.13 Throughout the 1940s, various Japanese consular officials were harassed for

alleged espionage.14 No convincing evidence, however, suggests that a Japanese “Fifth Column”

was operating within the United States during the war years.15 Propaganda outlets, on the other

hand, were a real phenomenon. The Jikyoku Iinkai (or Japanese Committee on Trade and

Information) operated out of San Francisco from 1937 to 1940 and worked to distribute literature

in favor of the Japanese government throughout the United States. In June 1938, Joseph H.

Smyth purchased the periodical The Living Age and began endorsing the Japanese cause with

funding from the Japanese Consulate of New York City.16 After Smyth and his colleagues

attempted to extend their influence, they became targets for a U.S. Justice Department

investigation in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. On November 12, 1942, the Federal District Court

for Eastern New York sentenced them to seven years in prison.17 The American consuls Ralph

Townsend, Frederick Vincent Williams and David Warren Ryder also received funding from the

Jikyoku Iinkai and were subject to a separate investigation. Williams’ payment was directed

primarily towards his speeches supporting the Japanese cause, while Townsend and Ryder

11 Ibid.12 Schonbach, 117.13 Ibid., 211.14 Ibid., 210.15 Ibid., 202-03.16 Ibid., 213.17 Ibid. 213-14.

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printed pamphlets.18 Upon investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, Townsend admitted to

misrepresenting his purpose when he filed as a foreign lobbyist with the State Department. For

this violation of the McCormack Act, he received a sentence of up to two years in prison.19

Similar punishments fell on a handful of others, including prolific pro-Japanese writer John C.

LeClair.20

All of these incidents clearly concerned specific cases of pro-Japanese propaganda.

Despite the objections of many civil libertarians to the actions of H.U.A.C. and other

committees, each of the accused received trials with due process. The same, however, cannot be

said regarding one of the most notorious human rights violations of the American war effort—

the mass internment of Japanese Americans. Following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor by the

Japanese military on December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt released Executive Order 9066 on

February 19, 1942. This order called for “the Secretary of War and Military Commanders . . . to

prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military

Commander may determine . . . [and] the right of any person to remain in, or leave [these

internment areas] shall be subject to whatever restriction the Secretary of War or the appropriate

Military Commander may impose in his discretion.”21 In all, approximately 120,000 Japanese-

Americans were relocated from the West Coast.22 Yet were these provisions effective in

restraining the activities of pro-Japanese and pro-Axis supporters? For the sake of pacing, this

crucial question will be addressed later in this paper.

18 “106 Register as Foreign Agents Here,” Washington Post, October 11, 1938; Sydney Greenbie. “Ryder-Williams Trial Unwinds Japanese Intrigue,” Christian Science Monitor, June 3, 1942.19 Schonbach, 214.20 Ibid., 214-15.21 Franklin D. Roosevelt, Executive Order 9066 – Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas, February 19, 1942, General Records of the United States Government, Record Group 11, National Archives.22 Documents from the National Archives: Internment of Japanese Americans (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1989), 9-10.

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German-American Nazi sympathizers constitute the last Axis element to be covered here,

and they provide the most case studies in the fascist-federal government feud. Each individual

and organization involved meets the definition of “Nazi bundist” and “bund movement member”

(not to confuse the latter two terms with those individuals strictly associated with the German-

American Bund, referred to as “Bundists” or “Bund members”).23 An overwhelming majority of

bundists were 1920s German emigrants, and Nazi propaganda first infiltrated the United States in

1924 when National Socialist Party official Kurt G. W. Ludecke sneaked into the country and

distributed leaflets to German-Americans.24 The first fascist organizations to contribute economic

support to Hitler’s Germany were the Chicago, Detroit, and New York City-based Teutonia

Societies, though they were largely ineffective.25 Similar groups, such as the Landesgruppe of the

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei and Friends of the Hitler Movement, were formed

between 1930 and 1939 under the supervision of Hitler’s American confidant, Ernst

Hanfstaengl.26 The German-American Bund emerged in 1936 as a reorganization of the Friends

of the New Germany, itself a 1933 replacement for Gau-USA and the Free Society of Teutonia.27

By far the most significant pro-fascist German-American organization, the German-American

Bund, maintained an upwards of 10,000 members through the 1930s.28 By the decade’s end, the

increasingly toxic actions of Adolf Hitler forced the organization to forgo incorporation of

German nationals and the display of Nazi memorabilia. In 1939, New York City’s district

attorney, Thomas E. Dewey, sentenced German-American Bund leader Fritz Julius Kuhn to a

23 Sander A. Diamond, The Nazi Movement in the United States 1924-1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), 7.24 Ibid., 8; Schonbach, 122.25 Schonbach, 122-24.26 Ibid., 124.27 Susan Canedy, America’s Nazis, A Democratic Dilemma: A History of the German-American Bund (Menlo Park, CA: Markgraf Publications Croup, 1990), 50-74.28 Ibid., 86.

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maximum of five years in prison on charges of embezzlement and tax evasion.29 The Bund did

survive into the early 1940s though, as effective leadership and group unity crumbled in the

wake of increasing federal investigation and the Treasury Department’s closing of Bund offices

on December 11, 1941.30

The federal government’s pursuit of bundists began with a minor 1933 Federal Bureau of

Investigation inquiry into pro-Nazi activities, though the president and the McCormack Dickstein

Committee paid closer attention to the problem in 1934.31 As the World War II era dawned, the

dissolution of pro-Hitler organizations did not mean the end of their most die-hard leaders, nor

did it entail the end of bundist propaganda. In the summer of 1941 alone, more than three million

pro-Nazi publications entered the United States from Germany and were redistributed by

American supporters.32 As a result, all three branches of the federal government worked to

combat an effective native fascist movement from undermining the war effort. A key figure in

the continued release of Nazi propaganda was George Sylvester Viereck, an unrepentant Nazi

apologist and German immigrant. On October 9, 1941, the F.B.I. arrested Viereck for failing to

comply with terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.33 Justice F. Dickinson Letts and the

Supreme Court of the District of Columbia sentenced him to two to six years in prison with a

fine of $1,500 on March 14, 1942.34 Witness testimony also suggested that U.S. senators

Hamilton Fish, Rush Holt, Stephen A. Day, and Ernest Lundeen had conspired “under the capital

dome” to insert speeches secretly written by Viereck into the congressional record.35 Federal

29 Ibid., 213-26.30 Schonbach, 373.31 Ibid., 134,138.32 Ibid., 325.33 “Viereck Seized as Chief Agent for Nazis in U.S.: Accused of Receiving up to $40,000 in a Single Year,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, October 9, 1941.34 “Viereck is Sentenced to 2 to 6 Years, Reads 1,000-word Statement to Court,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, March 14, 1942.35 “Says Viereck Put Nazi Views in Congress Record: Prosecutor Links Hitler Agent with Lundeen-Sweeney Group,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 18, 1942.

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prosecutor William Power Maloney pursued charges against each of these men, though he was

only able to prove that Senator Fish’s secretary George Hill had any knowledge of propaganda

distribution.36 One year into Viereck’s prison term, the Supreme Court of the United States

ordered a retrial in a five to two decision due to “foul” manipulations of the jury by Maloney.37

Despite this turn of events, the District of Columbia General District Court sentenced Viereck to

one to five years in prison on July 31, 1943.38 The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed his 1944 pleas

for further appeal.39

Another government target was Father Charles Coughlin and his “Christian Front”

organization. Coughlin, a radio broadcaster and publisher of the periodical Social Justice,

promoted anti-communist, pro-Nazi, and anti-Semitic views. He attracted a radio audience of

over three million people as late as 1938.40 The F.B.I. arrested several members of the Christian

Front in Brooklyn in January 1940, though their public trial dropped the charges based on free

speech concerns.41 This precedent spared Coughlin from formal persecution. Nevertheless, the

Post Office Department suspended mailing of Social Justice when Attorney General Francis

Biddle accused the periodical of violating of the Espionage Act in April 1942.42 This setback,

combined with the loss of Coughlin’s radio outlets by the National Association of Broadcasters

in 1939, effectively ended the preacher’s career. 43 In late 1942, the Supreme Court of the United

States heard testimony in U.S. v. Fritz Julius Kuhn and Nineteen Other Cases. Despite the

36 Charles Higham, American Swastika (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1985), 45-50.37 “High Court Upsets Viereck Verdict: Conviction of Nazi Agent Void; U.S. Attorney’s Conduct Denounced,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, March 1, 1943.38 “Viereck is Sentenced as an Alien Agent: Pro-German Propagandist Gets One to Five Years,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, July 31, 1943.39 George Sylvester Viereck, Petitioner, v. the United States of America., 321 (U.S. 794 1944). 40 Schonbach, 293.41 Ibid., 298-99.42 Ibid., 309.43 Ibid., 300

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defendants’ argument that no part of the German-American Bund was committed to anti-

Americanism or retained a conflicting allegiance to Germany, the prosecution prevailed by

emphasizing the critical influence of Berlin over Bundist philosophy.44 As a result, Kuhn was

interned at a federal camp in New Mexico and was later deported to Germany after the war’s

end. That same year, the outspoken Axis-supporters Robert Noble, F. K. Ferenz (a Bund

associate) and Ellis Jones were convicted for violating provisions of the Subversive Organization

Registration Act, though an appeals court subsequently dropped these charges.45

Despite these cases, the most dramatic single effort by the federal government to

prosecute native fascists occurred from 1944 to 1947. “The Great Sedition Trail” was partially

influenced by the American Jewish Committee. It targeted bundists, isolationists, pacifists,

socialists, nativists, German Americans and anti-Semites for alleged allegiance to Nazi Germany.

From July 21, 1942 to January 3, 1944, a federal grand jury issued multiple indictments against

dozens of alleged violators of the Smith and Espionage acts.46 Those accused included George

Viereck, James F. Garner, and German-American Bund leaders Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze and

August Klapprott.47 The trial itself began on April 17, 1944 and quickly degenerated into a

disastrous political show. One by one, press outlets left the courtroom as the trial’s organization

and purpose deteriorated. On November 29, 1944, presiding judge Edward C. Eicher died of a

heart attack and was replaced by Judge Bolitha Laws. Realizing the futility of further

prosecution, Laws dismissed all charges to end what he described as “a travesty on justice” on

November 22, 1946.48 By war’s end, Allied victory and government actions had virtually

44 Diamond, 348.45Time Life Inc., “Voices of Defeat: Dissident Groups Sow Lies and Hate Within the US,” Life Magazine, April 13, 1942, 86.46 Schonbach, 415.47 Ibid.48 “Court Dismisses Mass Sedition: Judge Calls it ‘Travesty on Justice,’” The Cornell Daily Sun, November 23, 1946, accessed 12/4/14, http://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/cornell?a=d&d=CDS19461123.2.18.

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obliterated global and American fascism.49 Despite the future existence of organizations such as

the American Nazi Party (founded 1959), none have merited comprehensive federal

governmental investigation nor displayed the same degree of strength and organization as the

German-American Bund.

In contrast to the persecution of Axis supporters, the communist-American relationship

with the federal government during World War II represented a political struggle capriciously

teetering between conflict and cooperation. Before proceeding with the historical details, a

definition of what constituted a “communist” must be established. For over one hundred years,

“communists” have defined only one element of the radical left. As such, supporters of various

“socialist” organizations and Soviet Union sympathizers frequently do not fall under its

definition. The focus of this investigation centers on a “highly concentrated” minority of

Americans—those whose social and political lives were centered under the banner of the

distinctly “communist” Communist Party U.S.A.50 This political party, abbreviated C.P.U. for

the sake of convenience, was founded in 1919 and emerged in the 1920s through a relationship

with trade unions.51 Throughout the 1930s, the party experienced internal conflict over

willingness to compromise ideology for the sake of political cooperation. Two of the most

pressing issues concerned whether or not anti-fascist unity should constitute the party’s primary

goal and to what extent it should criticize the Roosevelt Administration as an aid to capitalism.52

Both of these dilemmas would continue throughout the war years and provide the core questions

of the communist/federal government relationship.

49 Schonbach, 441.50 Maurice Isserman. Which Side Were You On? The American Communist Party During the Second World War (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1982), 36.51 Edward P. Johanningsmeier, Forging American Communism: The Life of William Z. Foster (Princeton University Press, 1994), 3.52 Ibid., 12.

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As 1939 dawned, party chairman Earl Browder announced the C.P.U.’s explicit intent to

“take [its] place within the traditional American two-party system.”53 Having abandoned a

traditional opposition to American military funding following consultation with Soviet officials

in the aftermath of the 1938 Munich Pact,54 Communist priorities centered on the need to prepare

for conflict in addition to supporting New Deal programs and limiting the power of the House

Un-American Activities Committee.55 However, international affairs would quickly change the

party’s tune in the first of a long series of policy reversals. The signing of the Molotov-

Ribbentrop Pact on August 23, 1939 ensured mutual non-aggression between the Soviet Union

and Nazi Germany. As a perpetual subservient to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the

C.P.U. scrambled to reverse its position on preparing to fight the Axis with minimal damage.56

The resulting about-face, memorably described by the anti-communist newspaper New Leader as

the act of “a decapitated chicken running wildly around the barnyard,”57 was solidified by a Party

letter to President Roosevelt expressing “firm accord with the stand of the President . . . against

American involvement in the war.”58 Yet this stance did little to prevent public retaliation against

domestic communists following Stalin’s September 17 attack on Poland. Viewing the C.P.U. as a

mouthpiece for an aggressive, totalitarian system of government, many Americans came to

regard its members as the mirror image of Nazi Bundists.59 As such, journalists and civilians

adopted the “Communazi” meme to lump both arguments into a shared scrutiny.60

53 Earl Browder, Fighting for Peace (New York: International Publishers, 1939), 200.54 Isserman, 26.55 Ibid., 27.56 Ibid., 33.57 New Leader, September 2, 1939, 3:1.58 Communist, XVII (October 1939), 899-904.59 Isserman, 44.60 Ibid.

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September 1939 also witnessed the first critical assault on the party’s political apparatus

by the federal government. From 1926 to 1929, Earl Browder had traveled to China to assist in

labor-organizing activities and work with the Chinese Communist Party.61 In the course of his

time abroad, Browder had allegedly traveled using false passports and assumed names.62 These

facts attracted the attention of the Justice Department and H.U.A.C. chairman Martin Dies, the

latter pursuing these charges with an aggressive zeal ten years after their occurrence. Earl

Browder was dragged before the committee on September 5 and, in the course of a grueling

investigation, let slip that he had in fact traveled using false documents.63 The Communist Party

leader was indicted the next month, swiftly followed by the federal government’s prosecution of

Communist Party treasurer William Weiner, Daily Worker publicist Harry Gannes, and

California Communist Party district organizer William Schneiderman.64 That the House Un-

American Activities Committee selectively targeted high-ranking C.P.U. influences is obvious,

though the records of the H.U.A.C. chairman reveal a deeper justification for his actions. In his

1940 book The Trojan Horse in America, Dies claimed that “a fifth column for propaganda must

operate largely in the open even though its purposes and controls remain secret…in the last

analysis, the fifth column of propaganda may be more menacing to our national security than the

fifth column of espionage” (italics added).65 In other words, even the legal activities of

communist supporters could now be deemed a threat to the United States in the eyes of the law.

Earl Browder’s trial began on January 17, 1940 in the New York City Federal District

Court.66 The C.P.U. chairman was sentenced to a four-year prison term and fined $2,000. This

61 Ibid., 5.62 Ibid., 48.63 “Browder Admits False Passports: Before Dies Group,” New York Times, September 6, 1939, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2010) with Index (1851-1993).64 Isserman, 49.65 Martin Dies, The Trojan Horse in America (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1940), 11.66 Isserman, 55.

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penalty impacted heavily on Communist Party affairs. Philosophically, the attack on the

Communist Party’s leader ended a longstanding hesitancy to criticize President Roosevelt.

Slightly over a month after Browder’s conviction, he railed that communist priorities should

switch from promoting a “third term” for FDR but to supporting a “third party.”67 An aggressive

anti-war campaign emerged around the slogan “The Yanks Aren’t Coming,”68 this time taking

great care to emphasize the negative effect of war on First Amendment rights.69 Browder’s

imprisonment, however, torpedoed any fledgling hope of an effective Communist campaign in

the 1940 national elections. The chairman ran as a presidential candidate alongside black vice

presidential candidate James Ford, though court orders prohibited Browder (free on bail) from

traveling outside the jurisdiction of the New York Federal Court.70 As a result, he could not

physically campaign and relied instead on the efforts William Z. Foster and his vice presidential

pick to tour the country.71

Yet not even these men could overcome the damage inflicted by the federal government’s

1940 “Red Scare.” Washington aimed at excluding the C.P.U. from as many state ballots as

possible, and was aided to a limited yet crucial extent by the Roosevelt Administration.72 In the

fall of 1939, President Roosevelt gave Attorney General Frank Murphy authorization to probe

prominent Communist Party officials, leading to an investigation of those responsible for

propaganda publications by a federal grand jury in Washington and the F.B.I.’s arrest of twelve

people in Detroit and Milwaukee in February 1940.73 Mid-June to September 1940 brought more

bad news from the United States Congress, which passed the Alien Registration and Voorhis

67 Earl Browder, The People Against the Warmakers (New York: Worker’s Library, 1940), 17.68 “4000 Listen to Earl Browder Attack U.S. Aid to Finland,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 10, 1939.69 Isserman, 63.70 “Communists Name Browder Again,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, June 3, 1940.; Isserman, 71.71 Isserman, 71.72 Ibid., 67.73 Ibid.

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Registration Acts in both houses with overwhelming margins.74 The specifics of these laws need

not be reiterated, though it is interesting to note that the original inspiration for the Voorhis Act

came from correspondence with the Dies Committee from Morris Ernst, a New York lawyer and

rabid anti-communist.75 Although the Voorhis Registration Act subsequently created major

headaches for Axis supporters, it owed its inspiration to anti-communist sentiment.

Unsurprisingly, the House Un-American Activities Committee thrived in this

environment, imprisoning multiple communist officials in the spring of 1940.76 The “Scare” as a

whole succeeded in restricting the Browder-Ford ticket to the ballots of just twenty-two states.77

Under these dangerous political conditions, the Communist Party covertly turned from

campaigning to influencing organized labor in an effort to achieve its goals. Essentially, the

latest strategy of resisting American war involvement would focus on halting the production of

war resources in crucial chemical plants, shipyards, and aircraft factories through worker

strikes.78 Yet even this strategy did not escape detection by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Undercover agents within the C.P.U. reported strike plans to F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover,

who informed Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau that communist section leaders

would “follow their own initiative in delaying production” in San Francisco.79 Deeply disturbed,

Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and Secretary of War Henry Stimson appealed to President

Roosevelt to intervene; in response, Roosevelt acknowledged the communist influence over

strikes and sought to broaden the F.B.I.’s “investigative responsibility” over dissident labor

74 Ibid., 68-69.75 Ibid., 68.76 Ibid., 69.77 Ibid., 71.78 Joel Seidman, “Labor Policy of the Communist Party During World War II,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. 4, no. 1 (October 1950): 57 accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2519321.79 Harold Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes: the Lowering Clouds 1939-1941 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955), 190.

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movements.80 Furthermore, Roosevelt seriously debated directing the responsibility of strike

investigations to military intelligence, then reconsidered due to the influence of Secretary of

Labor Francis Perkins and finally opted for the establishment of the National Defense Mediation

Board to regulate disputes.81 Quite expectedly, Communist unionist decried the new institution as

“an all-out labor busting and strike-breaking device.”82 In response, Roosevelt warned in a May

27, 1941 radio address that the government would “use all of its power to express the will of the

people, and to prevent interference with the production of materials essential to the nation’s

security.”83 This was not an empty threat. In a dramatic culmination of Communist Party tactics,

workers at the North American Aviation plant near Los Angeles went on strike demanding wage

increases.84 With a quarter of the country’s fighter aircraft on the line, Roosevelt intervened

when a majority of workers ignored a back-to-work mandate.85 Thousands of federal troops

marched on the plant on Monday, June 9, 1941, ending the strike and marking the first recorded

use of federal troops to break a strike in the 20th century.86 The impact of this event crippled the

communists’ influence over the United Automobile Workers’ aviation branch while

emboldening its opponents.87

Up to this point, the wartime struggle of the Communist Party of America resembled a

slightly more sophisticated mirror image of the struggle of fascist Americans—both essentially

detailing a sustained bludgeoning at the hands of federal authorities. Yet the summer of 1941

would throw a dramatic twist into the communist narrative, one with residual effects for years

80 Isserman, 89-90.81 Ickes, 461.82 Bert Cochran, Labor and Communism: The Conflict that Shaped American Unions (Princeton University Press, 1980), 181-82.83 Franklin D. Roosevelt, Public Papers and Addresses, vol. 10, 1941, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950), 191-92.84 Isserman, 97.85 Ibid., 97-98.86 Ibid., 98.87 Cochran, 182.

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and important implications for the conclusions of this analysis. On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler

shattered the provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by unleashing Fall Barbarossa, a

formal invasion of the Soviet Union. Once again, the American Communist Party was thrown

into chaos. After sinking so much time, energy, and effort into campaigns against the war, the

C.P.U. once again debated an embarrassing reversal of opinion. The final verdict adopted an

“enemy of the enemy”-type rationalization; the defense of the Soviet Union would now assume

top priority. While William Foster affirmed that the Communist Party’s support of the Roosevelt

Administration “in all the blows that it may deliver against Hitler, [did not] forget the imperialist

character of the government nor its imperialist aims,”88 these reservations did not appear in

published resolutions.89 In other words, the Communist Party was now fully supporting

American defense policies. From here, previous ideological convictions began to crumble in the

wake of the party’s newfound priority. To give one example, black communist leader James Ford

argued, “It would be equally wrong to press [for black rights] without regard to the main task of

the destruction of Hitler, without which no serious fight for Negro rights is possible.”90 The

federal government’s persecution of the Communist Party slackened as a result of this allegiance,

though F.B.I. surveillance continued steadily past the war’s end.91 Additionally, several legal

concessions turned in the C.P.U.’s favor. As December 1941 concluded, the House of

Representatives effectively transferred the investigation of foreigners from the State Department

to the Justice Department.92 Martin Dies attempted to add a clause demanding that Communist

Party members register with the Justice Department, but the Senate repudiated his amendment.93

88 William Z. Foster and Robert Minor, The Fight Against Hitlerism (New York: Workers Library, 1941), 21.89 Isserman, 107.90 Communist XX, October 1941, 894-95.91 Isserman, 126 149.92 Ibid., 130.93 Ibid.

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After reconsideration, Roosevelt also commuted Earl Browder’s prison sentence in part to

prepare for an upcoming meeting with the Soviet foreign minister and in part due to the urging of

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Elbert Thomas.94

Browder’s return to the forefront of party leadership signaled further changes in

traditional communist priorities, the biggest related to the issue of labor strikes. In an effort to

quell discontent in critical mining and steel corporations, the federal government brokered a

compromise to sustain wage increases to adjust for rising costs of living.95 The Communist Party

supported this decision, though it took things a step further by supporting strikes “only in defense

of the workers’ most basic economic interests or to protect the life of the trade unions, and then

only as a last resort.”96 When several union members broke ranks in 1943, the Communist Party

supported the Roosevelt Administration’s “Hold the Line” order forcing them back to work.97

While communist literary critic Mike Gold warned of “stupid, cruel and un-American

persecutions and mob actions against aliens,”98 the Communist party said nothing against the

internment of naturalized Japanese citizens.99 Clearly, ideology was being sacrificed for the sake

of politics, though these changes were mere shadows compared to the radical about-face that

would define the remainder of the C.P.U.’s war years.

As November 1943 wound to a close, the major Allied powers agreed at the Tehran

Conference to set a date for the liberation of Western Europe. The meeting’s joint communiqué

pledged that the Allies would “work together in the peace that will follow,” a gesture interpreted

by Browder to mean that the socialist struggle had to be postponed.100 In other words, Browder

94 Ibid., 131.95 Ibid., 136.96 Daily Worker, November 14, 1941, 6:3.97 Isserman, 161.98 Daily Worker, January 8, 1942, 7:1.99 Isserman, 144.100 Isserman, 192.

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was now encouraging cooperation with capitalism for the sake of world order. Resulting

arguments among the C.P.U. leadership led to the formal dissolution of the party on May 20,

1944 right after it endorsed a fourth term for Franklin Delano Roosevelt,101 followed by its

reformation after a 14-month hiatus.102

As World War II concluded, the Grand Alliance began to unravel in the wake of the

defeat of Nazi Germany.103 Once again, the Communist Party reversed its stance on Tehran,104

though this change-of-heart fatally coincided with an increasingly anti-communist stance on the

part of the American public and federal government.105 Earl Browder was expelled from the party

by party delegates,106 though the end of his tenure came at the expense of party unity.107 As a

result, all wartime political gains were destroyed in an implosion of party leadership and

organization lasting through the 1960s.108

With both the pro-Axis and communist narratives established, it is time to return to the

central question of this investigation—namely, which government/dissident struggle represents

the more “complex,” “dynamic,” and overall “significant” conflict in historical retrospect.

Clearly, both Axis supporters and communists were sustained targets of the federal government

throughout World War II despite attempts of the latter to cooperate within the system from late

1941 to 1945. Both domestic communists and Axis supporters produced written and spoken

propaganda to defend their philosophies, and the federal government targeted both forms at least

once for each movement. Additionally, both individuals and organizations affiliated with Axis

101 “U.S. Communists Back Roosevelt,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, May 20, 1944.102 “Communist Party in Politics Again,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, July 28, 1945.103 Isserman, 214-17.104 Ibid., 230.105 Ibid., 244.106 “Browder is Silent on Loss of Office,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, September 27, 1945.107 Isserman, 241-43.108 Ibid., 255-56.

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support or communism were targeted by the state. The similarities between both factions,

however, largely end there. Fascist ideology sustained a profound hatred for communist

ideology, and the Communist Party reciprocated these feelings. Additionally, communists

organized along the lines of a political party, and they sustained that structure with one

interruption throughout the war. Axis supporters preferred to operate in largely fraternal groups.

Most of these had been driven into bankruptcy by the war’s start, and they dissolved completely

by the war’s end.

The definition of “complexity” implies an intricate and composite nature,109 avoiding

simplistic causes and effects and a one-dimensional storyline. Similarly, the definition of

“dynamic” entails a system “characterized by constant change, activity or progress”110 The

relationship between the federal government and the Communist Party U.S.A. clearly epitomizes

each of these characteristics from 1939 to 1945. Regarding the war, C.P.U. opinion switched

from support for military preparation through the first half of 1939, to support for the

government’s opposition to entering a global war (August 1939 to early 1940), to opposing the

government’s attempt to prepare for warfare (early 1940 to June 22, 1941), to supporting the

government’s involvement in World War II to aid the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941 to war’s end).

Regarding political activism, C.P.U. strategy switched from influencing the two-party system

through campaigning, to supporting the establishment of a third party, to working through

organized labor to accomplish political dissent, to throwing official support behind the Roosevelt

Administration. If these sequences do not embody “dynamism” at face value, then the concept is

meaningless.

109 Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “complexity,” accessed 11/5/14, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/37689?redirectedFrom=complexity#eid.110 Oxford Dictionaries, s.v. “dynamic,” accessed 11/5/14, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/dynamic.

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The motivations behind these changes and the federal government’s response to them

also embody the definition of “complexity.” Through all things, the Communist Party U.S.A.

supported the Soviet Union first and foremost, an allegiance clearly demonstrated through the

organization’s radical swings in opinion and lengths to which it justified them. Domestic

political circumstances, however, often dictated the lengths to which support or dissent could go.

Communist leaders initially hesitated to criticize Roosevelt due to the president’s support of New

Deal policies and his immense popularity, though the trial of Earl Browder and Red Scare of

1940 demanded a sharp condemnation. All defiance of war efforts had to dance around

classification as sedition, and not all were successful in this goal. All support for government war

efforts prior to Fall Barbarossa was moderate in the face of government persecution, though

Germany’s 1941 attack on the Soviet Union forced adamant support of American war efforts.

Similarly, the federal government’s persecution of communists appeared to slacken when the

C.P.U. endorsed the Allied cause. Ideological motivations influenced the course of these events,

but pragmatic concerns also had an enormous influence over the way they unfolded. The

historical result was multi-faceted, capricious, and dependent on a broad range of circumstances.

In contrast, the relationship between Axis supporters and the federal government

displayed the characteristics of a search-and-destroy mission directed against unshakable

convictions throughout the course of the entire war. Apart from the recantation of Generoso

Pope, no prominently indicted Axis supporters ever expressed the slightest willingness to

compromise with federal authorities. The government returned the favor through an unremitting

and escalating anti-fascist campaign—limited in its success and efficiency but thoroughly

unwilling to concede legitimacy to the enemy under consideration. The only significant

exception to this rule, the cooperation of senators Rush Holt, Stephen A. Day, Ernest Lundeen,

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and Hamilton Fish to help distribute George Viereck’s propaganda at taxpayer expense,

represents a clear outlier in a grander scheme. A major reason for unalterable tension stems from

the fact that the federal government was pursuing those insane enough to support the German,

Japanese, and Italian cause in the middle of a society conducting total war against it. Pro-Axis

resistance unlike that of American communists, was not conducted by a single political

organization at World War II’s beginning, but rather by individuals and small fraternal groups.

Perhaps the differences among each individual yields “complexity,” though their interaction with

the federal government represented a single narrative in almost all circumstances. The pro-Axis

war experience, in simplest possible terms, was a simple one.

Lastly, the question of “significance” assesses what “complexity” and “dynamism” mean

in historical context. Which relationship most profoundly affected the individuals and

organizations involved, which interaction reveals the most about the government and its targets,

and which lessons are the most important? To answer these questions, the key themes of both

government-dissident relations must be examined back-to-back. In most cases, federal

prosecutors went to great lengths to charge their targets with technical legal violations over

claims of “sedition.” When this consideration was suspended in the Great Sedition Trial, the

result was condemned as a public relations and civil liberties disaster of historic and epic

proportions. Herein lies an important lesson regarding freedom of speech, though similar lessons

arise from an analysis of communist persecution. Once again, technical charges almost always

eclipsed sedition charges. Concerning the effect of crackdowns, the federal government

succeeded in partially incapacitating communist leader Earl Browder, crippling the C.P.U.’s

1940 political campaigns, and damaging its influence over organized labor. Efforts to strike pro-

Axis elements contributed to the indictment of several talking heads and dismantlement of any

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remaining influential Nazi organizations. Nevertheless, the sentences meted out to Axis

supporters often amounted to nothing more than fines and short prison terms, with some cases

dropped due to free speech concerns. The efficiency of the government’s investigations was also

flawed. An editorial in Kansas City’s Plaindealer, an African American newspaper, charged that

“Nazi spies [and] Japanese agents . . . have escaped Mr. Dies and his committee . . . Only the

anti-fascist forces who fought these enemies fiercest have been assaulted by [the chairman].”111

Indeed, convicted communist leaders frequently received maximum prison terms, and federal

prosecutors explicitly cited the mere fact of their party membership as grounds for suspicion and

indictment.

These facts suggest that communist prosecution was more “significant” than pro-Axis

persecution, though history’s final verdict must consider the problem of Japanese internment.

Those who argue that government crackdowns hurt domestic Axis supporters more than

communists may cite the imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans as an unprecedented

suspension of constitutional rights in support of neutralizing an “enemy.” This line of reasoning,

however, distorts the true motivations driving internment. Prejudice towards Japanese

immigrants predated the turn of the 20th century, and government intelligence determined that

Japanese Americans posed virtually no threat to national security prior to Pearl Harbor.112 The

primary government agitators for internment were those who misread a congressional

commission’s report on Pearl Harbor—claiming that the Japanese consulate in Hawaii was

responsible for passing intelligence on to the Japanese mainland when the report mentioned no

such thing.113 Interestingly, Americans of Italian or German descent did not suffer a similar mass

111 “Best Editorial of the Week: No Appeasement,” Plaindealer (Kansas City), February 19, 1943, accessed October 5, 2014, America’s Historical Newspapers.112 Wendy Ng, Japanese American Internment During World War II: A History and Reference Guide (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002), 8, 14.113 Ibid., 16.

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internment. If a genuine effort were underway to isolate Axis “supporters” in the United States,

as opposed to a racially motivated114”military necessity” based on rumors and speculation, one

would expect all heritages related to the Axis powers to be contained. Most damning of all,

virtually all detainees felt no sympathy for the Japanese government!115 Hence, the internment

issue carries little weight in a debate over the federal government’s relation to genuine fascism.

A final word must be said regarding the persistence of principle in the face of

government persecution. Overwhelmingly, Axis supporters maintained their allegiances in the

face of unfavorable political circumstances. Declarations of war, prison sentences, fines, sedition

charges, or organizational collapses failed to change the minds of George Viereck and his

associates. On the other hand, the Communist Party underwent radical conversions and

deconversions in “official” thought due to changing governmental aims. Most have been detailed

in previous sections, though Browder’s stance towards Tehran deserves a “significant”

consideration. That the Communist Party temporarily endorsed capitalism, the arch-nemesis of

Marxist thought, as the path to world order—after the sacrifice and struggle of holding the

communist ideological line during the late 30s through early 40s—is a “significant” piece of

history in any respect. At face value, this change of heart epitomizes the lengths to which the

C.P.U. went to preserve itself in wartime America. In a philosophical sense, it suggests that even

one’s most devoutly held beliefs are subject to suspension for the sake of “order.” This analysis

provides perhaps the most striking example of a non-intuitive conclusion—that American

communists faced deeper challenges than supporters of the Axis from 1939-1945.

In conclusion, the federal government’s World War II-era relations with American

communists superseded its persecution of Axis supporters in overall ”dynamism,” “complexity”

114 Ibid., 14.115 Ibid., 52.

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and “significance.” Far from providing a straight narrative detailing conviction after conviction,

a changing political environment dictated the extent to which communists resisted the federal

government or cooperated with the federal government. Rather than demonstrating static

ideological faith, the Communist Party adapted to the needs of the present moment. Unlike their

hesitancy to prosecute “seditious” Axis supporters, government officials labeled Communist

Party allegiance as a red flag for severe punishment. When amassed, these arguments support the

strange notion that enemies abroad were not always prioritized in the same way as enemies at

home. Time and again, historians have ignored the struggles of “Communazi” minority in favor

of the struggles of a patriotic American majority. Nevertheless, in light of the significance of

World War II to world history and global politics, the significance of the Axis and communism

in 20th century affairs, and the eternal dilemmas constituting human rights, this conclusion

mandates an audience outside the fringes of academia.

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* * * *

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